Comparing the two wings of the special sciences, i.e.,
psychognosy and physiognosy, and taking the history of their
development as a basis, but correcting the history, as well as we can,
in order to make it conform to what good logic and good economy would
have made it, we get the idea of rational courses of development which
these branches might have followed. Between these two there is a
striking parallel; so that we can formulate a general rational course
of inquiry. Now passing to the study of the history of special
sciences, also modified by the same process, we find some traces of
the same law; or to express it more clearly, it is as if the special
science showed us one part of the general scheme under a microscope.
By successively examining all the sciences in this way (or all I am
sufficiently able to comprehend), we can fill in details and make the
general formula more definite. We find here a succession of
conceptions which we can generalize in some measure, but which we find
it difficult to generalize very much without losing their peculiar
"flavors." These I call the categories of the course of research.
They have not the fundamental character of the categories of
appearance, but appear, nevertheless, to be of importance.

From Draft E - MS L75.183

Endeavors to formulate a general method, as well as special
methods as much generalized as possible. Studies the connection
between, 1st, natural classification; 2nd, a general formula of
evolution; 3rd, a general formula in the history of intellectual
development; 4th, the general formula of the course of research.
Inquires into the proper method of attacking the present question.
There are results; but there remains much to be discovered.

From Draft D - MS L75.298-302

One must suspect that a close relation exists between this
problem and that of classification; and since this one ought, one
would think, to be connected with some law exhibiting itself in the
history of science, we should expect a deep, sympathetic study of the
history of science to throw a light on the secret of the categories of
the classificatory hierarchy. It was owing to a hope that this might
turn out to be the case, and that those hierarchical categories might
have other useful applications, that I have bestowed great study on
the history of science.

The general course of the history of science has been something
like this. The first scientific problems to be taken up were
medicine, pneumatology, cosmogony, etc., which mostly seem hopeless
today. The result was that some successes began to be attained in
arithmetic and in the simplest parts of astronomy, and shortly there
was some development of geometry. We find in Pythagoras the
beginnings of a true science of the categories. His numbers were
categories; that is, elements of the phenomenon; and they bear a
certain general resemblance to my categories. The duality on which he
so much insisted was my second category, that of reaction. His
examples show this. He looked too much on the formal side of it, but
this was a good fault. We next find the Greeks developing a most
extraordinary understanding of esthetic truths. A little later, in
Socrates, we meet with a lofty ethical science. Logic follows in
Plato, thoroughly worked out in Aristotle. Metaphysics also takes
important steps; and that of Aristotle (a mere reworking of Plato) is
in some respects better than what is current today. We also find in
Aristotle decided success in psychology, the doctrine of association
being well stated. His mechanics was excessively bad. His biology
very rudimentary. Then came further successes in the simpler parts of
astronomy. Statics was established. Grammar became worked out. Thus
the order of development was substantially, and quite minutely, that
of my table of the classification of the sciences, which I drew up
exclusively to express the present state of the sciences as living
today. The only exception is that the beginnings of several
descriptive sciences were made although I place them at the bottom.
Omitting them, and also geometry, in which additions were continually
[text obscure: ed.], the order was: arithmetic, the categories,
esthetics, logic, metaphysics, psychology, statics, grammar.

Modern science is to complex to permit any such arrangement. The
general law is that of progress from the more abstract to the more
concrete. The history of any well-developed science exhibits the same
law. In optics, the doctrine of rays and perspective came first. The
law of reflexion was early discovered. The law of refraction was the
first modern discovery early in the 17th century. The velocity of
light was ascertained in 1676. Polarization, diffraction, and
dispersion were discovered about the same time, as well as phenomena
which were really those of interference. Thus, the main phenomena
were already known. The general theory of undulations was suggested
by Huygens, and Hooke showed that it would explain the colors of thin
plates. It was approved by Euler. But it was not until 1817 that
Young saw the vibrations were transverse. The electrical theory of
light dates from 1873.

Here, therefore, a purely geometrical account of the phenomena
of ordinary experience was worked out. Then the main phenomena were
discovered and mathematically formulated. Then the formal theory of
the constitution of light was lit upon and worked out mathematically,
and finally the material theory of its constitution arose from a
mathematical analysis of another branch of physics.

I have accumulated a considerable store of truth concerning the
course of scientific discovery of almost all branches; but I have not
yet brought it into the form of a system, as I propose to do in this
memoir.

Final Version - MS L75.390-391

MEMOIR 30

0N SYSTEMS OF DOCTRINE

Singularly enough, it seems to have been left to me to make a
first attempt to formulate in detail what a system of doctrine ought
to be. I follow the same general heuretic method as in the memoir,
No. 29, taking some of the most perfect systems extant, and imagining
how they might be more rational. In this way I work out a series of
conceptions which I term the categories of systems.

Final Version - MS L75.391

MEMOIR 31

ON CLASSIFICATIONS

I study classification, after some general considerations, by
actually drawing up a number of classifications of the only sort of
objects which we can sufficiently comprehend; that is to say,
different classes of objects of human creation; such as, contrivances
for keeping the skin warm, languages, words, alphabets, sciences, etc.
From these I endeavor to elicit a general series of categories of
classification.

From Draft E - MS L75.181-183

All classification is based on a purpose. If this purpose is
the idea governing the production of the objects classified, the
classification is "natural." Every class which embodies information,
in the sense that something is true of all its members beyond what is
involved in the definition of the class, is a natural class. All
classes are more or less natural; and all classification is more or
less natural. The study of classification has been largely pursued by
me in the light of actual classifications of objects wholly or
partially artificial, so that their real nature is less occult than
that of the forms of nature. By objects partially artificial, I mean
languages, sciences, customs of various kinds, etc. From these
classifications I ought to be able to deduce an answer to the question
whether there are any universal hierarchical categories of
classification, like those of Agassiz. I have done an enormous amount
of hard work that ought to bear on this question, without obtaining
any clear response. I do not know whether to say anything about it in
this memoir or not. It is an elusive question.

From Draft D - MS L75.288-298

In 1867 I worked out a theory of natural classification which I
never published, because the naturalists did not seem to take to it.
I had been a special student under Louis Agassiz for about six months,
with a view to studying his method of classification, that subject
being a branch of logic. Since then, I have endeavored to penetrate
further into the matter, and I think with some success. I continue to
think that the definition I then gave of an important character is
just. Namely, if one asks a naturalist why he considers a character
"important," he surely must give some reason: he cannot be content
with saying that it impresses him as such. Now his reason will either
be that this character involves certain others, as for example a
particular likelihood to taking certain forms, or it will be that this
character is of an order of characters, such, for example, as its
relating to the skeleton of the animal, which are generally important.
This importance must ultimately resolve itself into an importance of
the first kind; so the importance consists in a character's
universally carrying with it certain others, be those others no more
than tendencies. The objection made by the naturalists was that above
families, or some said above species, taxonomic characters do not
generally carry others with them. But in saying this they were
evidently limiting too much their conception of a character. For
there must be some reason for regarding a character as important, and
it is obvious that, in the last analysis, that means that the
character imports some other. In fact, the true objection to the
definition is not, as the naturalists said to me at that time, that so
few characters are important, but, on the contrary, that all
characters, even quite trivial ones, appear as important under that
definition. This consideration leads, at once, to the needed
correction of the conception of importance; and a very fundamental
correction it is. Namely, it is that an important character must not
only entrain others, but it must entrain another which has relation to
the purpose in view. That brings us back to Agassiz's conception of
natural classification, which all my study confirms me in holding to
be correct. Namely, every classification whatsoever, be it merely
arranging words in alphabetical order, has reference to some purpose,
or some tendency to an end. By a tendency to an end, I mean that a
certain result will be brought about, or approached, and in such a way
that if, within limits, its being brought about by one line of
mechanical causation be prevented, it will be brought about, or
approached, by an independent line of mechanical causation. This
definition is the one always virtually used by physiologists in
determining whether there is a tendency to an end. Every
classification has reference to a tendency toward an end. If this
tendency is the tendency which has determined the class characters of
the objects, it is something of which there is a unitary conception.
Persons whose conceptions are in need of logical training may
misunderstand the statement that the end is not brought about by
mechanical force. This is because crude and incomplete notions of
"energy" and mechanical force have so taken possession of empty heads
that they do not perceive that according to the general equation of
motion no state of things is due exclusively to the action of forces,
because the equation of motion is merely a differential equation of
the second order; so that there are six circumstances for each
particle that are not due to force. Now in case these trillions of
circumstances present any general character, as they always must, or
the problem would not attract any attention, a general character of
the result is due to other factors than force; and it very generally
happens that the most important characters are due to other factors.
Take, for example, the phenomenon of the diffusion of gases. Force
has very little to do with it, the molecules not being appreciably
under the influence of forces. The result is due to the statistics of
the equal masses, the positions, and the motions of the molecules, and
to a slight degree only upon force, and that only insofar as there is
a force, almost regardless of its character, except that it becomes
sensible only at small distances. These features of a gas, that it is
composed of equal molecules distributed according to a statistical
law, and with velocities also distributed according to a statistical
law, is an intellectual character. Accordingly, the phenomenon of
diffusion is a tendency toward an end; it works one way, and not the
opposite way, and if hindered, within certain limits, it will, when
freed, recommence in such way as it can. Not only is an end an
intellectual idea, but every intellectual idea governing a phenomenon
produces a tendency toward an end. It is very easy to see by a
general survey of nature, that force is a subsidiary agency in nature.
There ought, therefore, to be discoverable natural classifications in
nature; and Agassiz was right in saying that such a classification
must have reference to an intellectual idea. I need not say that the
idea itself, like almost every profound and important idea of
philosophy, was very old. It was Aristotle's, if not older. The
theory of natural development is in nowise opposed to this, whatever
flavor it may take, least of all in the Darwinian flavor. For natural
development takes place in one way, not in the opposite way; and the
Darwinian machinery for it is reproduction, which is manifestly a
tendency to an end. The neo-Darwinians seem to wish to make
reproduction and variation as mechanical as they can. This is a
praiseworthy effort, because it must inevitably eventuate in making
the truth more plain that they are not mechanical, in the sense of
being governed mainly by force. I do not know enough about biology to
entertain a definite opinion that the work of classification is now
conducted by a wrong method. I only note that naturalists certainly
entertain a number of opinions about classification which are not true
of classification generally. But how far these errors affect their
work, I do not know. I fancy that the study of nature must largely
force the right ideas upon them largely.

As a specimen of what I refer to as erroneous notions
entertained by naturalists about classification, I may mention the
idea that if two classes merge into one another they cannot be natural
classes. If we turn to classifications of human works, where the true
principles of natural classification are beyond question, we soon find
this idea refuted. In order to illustrate this, I shall, in the
memoir, discuss the weights found by Prof. Petrie at Naucratis, and
admirably worked over by him. I show, by an application of the
principles of probability, beyond all reasonable doubt and so clearly
that every naturalist must see the force of this argument, that in
certain cases, where weights were intended to conform to two different
standards, a weight intended to conform to the lighter standard was
heavier than another weight intended to conform to the heavier
standard. We can even say, roughly, how often this occurs. As a
consequence of this, it is impossible to say which standard certain
individual weights were intended to conform to. The two classes of
weights merge, and as far as individual weights are concerned, merge
inextricably, although they can be separated statistically.
Therefore, a naturalist does not prove that two species are not
natural classes by merely showing that they blend. I will give
another example to show that the general principle which seems to
underlie the naturalists' notion, namely, that an object has not
distinct parts unless those parts have definite limits, is false.
Namely, a lake with two islands in it certainly consists of two simple
parts, if by a simple part we are to understand a part not enclosing
an island. But the boundaries may be drawn as [below], or almost any
way.

[illustrative graphical figures omitted]

I do not pretend to have had any signal success in my studies of
classification. Yet what I have found out seems worth giving. I have
made classifications of artificial contrivances whose genesis we can
indubitably understand. In these cases, we find a course of
experience in which my three categories are repeated in order over and
over again. First, there is a form with its peculiar characteristic
of flavor. The reaction of experience develops manifest
inconvenience, whence comes thought, resulting in one or more new
forms (all novelty involves the first category) which in process of
time has to contend with new difficulties, a new analysis is made,
resulting in new improvements.

I have not, at yet, discovered any particular law of the
succession of problems--at least none that I should care to put
forward.

From Draft D - MS L75.335-343

I do not pretend to have reached any signal result in my studies
of classification, which have been, however, extended. But I have
found out some things. I think there must be some general categories
of classification, and that it may be that those of Agassiz approaches
them. Indeed, wherever I have tried them they seem to answer the
purpose, without, however, convincing me of more than this, that there
is some truth in them. I should also expect my general categories to
be of aid in determining the categories of classification.
Classification, is, I believe, best studied in classifying different
branches of human inventions and other human creations. Let us
consider, for example, means of protection of human beings from cold.
It will evidently be necessary to take account of the purpose of the
classification; whether, for example, the object be to gain a
conception of what has been done, or to decide what will best be done
in a given case. But, at all events, the first step must certainly be
to analyze the conditions of the problem. The human body generates
heat; and all that is requisite is to keep the skin and the air that
is breathed at certain temperatures. Practically, the latter point
needs no attention. It is merely the skin which must not lose heat
too rapidly. The first obvious suggestion is to surround it with a
non-conductor; and if no inconveniences attached to this method, no
other would ever be used. But several other conditions have to be
fulfilled. The skin must be under atmospheric pressure, it must be
supplied with oxygen, sufficient evaporation must go on from its
surface, and yet not too rapidly; the person must not be encumbered
with heavy clothing, and the man must not be imprisoned. On account
of the last condition, the reliance must be upon something in the
nature of clothing, and yet on account of the last but one, when the
man is quiescent this clothing must not be too heavy. On account of
the vast difference in the evolution of heat of a man in exercise and
at rest, unless we can find some light clothing which conducts heat
better when the man is in motion than when he is still, he must be
differently protected in the two states. Thus, if we are making our
classification for the purpose of finding a good solution of the
problem of keeping the skin in good condition, the first class of
conceivable contrivances will be a clothing weighing as little as
possible, as devoid of elasticity and resistance as possible, somewhat
porous, and conducting heat much better when the man is in motion than
when he is at rest. Then the question arises, shall this be carried
out by means of some peculiar material or by means of some mechanical
contrivance. Either of these methods would require some clothing not
cumbrous and yet warm enough to make it safe and comfortably for a man
to sleep without other protection. This might be devised; although it
would be somewhat expensive. But clothes must be changed, and the man
must bathe. These conditions are not impossible of fulfillment. But
a chemical change of conductivity is for the present out of the
question. Then the clothing must be so made that motion causes it to
open and admit air. This suggests very loose clothes capable of being
tightened, if one could find a fashion of loose clothes which were not
in the wearer's way in moving about. A man needs a house, it is true;
and we have adopted the unhealthy practices of living in the house and
of eating hot food. If we lived out of doors, it would be unsafe to
eat hot food. A house ought to be a storage place only. However,
granting that a man wants to live in the house, his plan has been to
put on extra clothing when he goes out. If he is going to live in the
house, the question is what clothing he should wear in the house. If
the mean annual temperature is high enough, he need only have a large
enough space to store sufficient air, and ventilate it only when the
sun shines sufficiently to heat the house by means of a glass-house
arrangement. He will then wear just clothing enough in the house to
make up the difference, and no artificial heat will be needed. It is
obvious that if we are to live in the house, the walls should be made
so thick and impervious to heat that artificial heat is unnecessary,
except perhaps during the winter storms. It is singular that we do
not pursue this mode of life either. We live in houses so ill
ventilated as to cause frightful loss of life and render old age rare,
and yet we build them so wretchedly as to involve great expense in
heating them. We wear clothing which is heavy, tiresome, and
unhealthy, without being warm enough. Since we insist in living in
such places, and refuse to make use of the heat of the sun, which
would easily heat a house throughout the winter with a proper
contrivance, except in unusual weather, we have to consider
artificial heat. In order to generate heat, we must have a source of
energy. We ask, first, whether there is energy at our doors to be
used, and, second, where we can find it. Every man has the sun, the
wind and earth currents; many men have water-power and tides. All
these might be utilized to heat a house, for nothing is so easily done
as to convert energy into heat, but so far it has not been done
economically, except by direct solar heat, which I have already
considered. The only sources of procured energy of any consequence at
present or hitherto are muscular energy and combustion. The former is
too expensive. We are reduced to combustibles. Then the question is,
shall the combustion be performed in the house, or out of the house.
In the former case, shall our fuel be solid, liquid, or gaseous. In
the latter case, are we to bring a heated substance, say steam, into
the house, or are we to bring in an electric current? Going back to
the former case, we have a cross-classification, according as the
combustion is to be performed in the very room that is to be heated,
or hot air, steam, hot water, or electricity is to be carried through
the house.

We thus have the beginning of a classification of means of
keeping warm, and our business now is to look this over and see what
we can learn about classification. The course of our discussion has
been this. Beginning with the purpose, which was somewhat complex, we
analyzed it; and owing to the complexity of the purpose but one
solution of the problem of attaining it seemed to present itself. But
it was found that that solution involved certain inconveniences, which
seemed to be due to the interference of another purpose. A new problem
thus arose which was analyzed and solved. But this solution was found
to involved inconvenience. The result was a new problem whose
conditions were simpler, for the reason that the inconveniences had
caused us to overrule some of the original requisitae. Being simpler,
half a dozen methods of solving it arose. It is evident that any such
discussion will present a problem, where the third category is
prominent; then a solution, where the first category comes into
prominence; then an inconvenience, where the second category rises into
prominence; then another problem, and so on. At each solution we have
generally a subdivision. That is, there will generally be several
solutions.

If anything of this sort is to be found, say in zoological
classification, each branch would be a solution of the problem of
producing an animal. But an inconvenience arises in connection with
each, and each class is a solution of the problem of dealing with that
inconvenience, and so on. This, however, does not seem to accord with
the facts. It seems more reasonable, if we are to adhere to the
formula of alternate solutions and inconveniences, to suppose that
there was first a moner, which, owing to reactions with its
environment produced rhizopods, gregarina, etc. That finally, owing
to changed conditions, a sponge, a worm, and a hydra were severally
produced as solutions of the problem. That the hydra after minor
difficulties had resulted in various new forms until a greater crisis
gave rise to a crinoid, etc.

But I attach no particular value to all this, in its present
state.

Final Version - MS L75.391-392

MEMOIR 32

ON DEFINITION AND THE CLEARNESS OF IDEAS

In January, 1878, I published a brief sketch of this subject
wherein I enunciated a certain maxim of "pragmatism," which has of
late attracted some attention, as indeed, it had when it appeared in
the Journal Philosophique. I still adhere to that doctrine; but it
needs more accurate definition in order to meet certain objections and
to avoid certain misapplication. Moreover, my paper of 1878 was
imperfect in tacitly leaving it to appear that the maxim of pragmatism
led to the last stage of clearness. I wish now to show that this is
not the case and to find a series of categories of clearness.

From Draft E - MS L75.182

In January, 1878, I published a very brief sketch of my doctrine
of this subject, including a maxim of "pragmatism," which has of late
years attracted some attention. I there developed three grades of
clearness of ideas. I now propose to treat all these more completely.
Especially, my former account of pragmatism omitted most important
questions and limitations. Furthermore, I am now prepared to show
that there is a fourth, still higher grade of clearness, which I think
I ought to set forth clearly.

From Draft D - MS L75.287-288

In 1877 I published a paper on this subject in which I set forth
a doctrine called "pragmatism" which has since been talked of. But I
know more about the clearness of ideas than I did a quarter of a
century ago. I there described three grades of clearness: 1st, that
which results from familiar use of the conception; 2nd, that which
results from logical analysis, and is expressed by a formal
definition; and 3rd, that which results from understanding the
practical implication of the conception. I propose in this memoir to
develop these three grades with fullness and not in the sketchy manner
of a magazine article. I shall give the whole theory of definition
and discuss its principal forms. I shall show, I hope quite
convincingly, the great harm done by that definition by abstraction of
which the Germans are so fond. For instance, to define coryza, you
direct a person to think of a man with a bad cold. Now take away his
pocket-handkerchief. Then take away his watch, knife, pocket-book,
loose change, keys, shirt-buttons, boots, gloves, and hat. Then
successively take away his clothes, body, and soul; and what you have
left is a beautifully clear notion of coryza. I shall explain the
doctrine of pragmatism more fully, and guard against extravagant
applications. Finally, I shall develop a fourth, and higher, grade of
clearness, resulting from an appreciation of the intellectual
relations of the definitum.

Final Version - MS L75.392-395

MEMOIR 33

ON OBJECTIVE LOGIC

The term `objective logic' is Hegel's; but since I reject
Absolute Idealism as false, `objective logic' necessarily means more
for me than it did for him. Let me explain. In saying that to be and
to be represented were the same, Hegel ignored the category of
reaction (that is, he imagined he reduced it to a mode of being
represented), thus failing to do justice to being, and at the same
time he was obliged to strain the nature of thought, and fail in
justice to that side also. Having thus distorted both sides of the
truth, it was a small thing for him to say that Begriffe were concrete
and had their part in the activity of the world; since that activity,
for him, was merely represented activity. But when I, with my
scientific appreciation of objectivity and of the brute nature of
reaction, maintain, nevertheless, that ideas really influence the
physical world, and in doing so carry their logic with them, I give to
objective logic a waking like which was absent from Hegel's dreamland.
I undertake in this memoir to show that so far from its being a
metaphorical expression to say that Truth and Right are the greatest
powers in this world, its meaning is just as literal as it is to say
that when I open the window in my study, I am really exercising an
agency. For the mode of causation in the one case and in the other is
precisely the same. In fact, there are two modes of causation
corresponding to Aristotle's efficient and final causation, which I
analyze and make clear, showing that both must concur to produce any
effect whatever. The mind is nothing but an organism of ideas; and to
say that I can open my window is to say than an idea can be an agent
in the production of a physical effect. This naturally looks toward a
special metaphysics of the soul; but I pass this by, as not germane to
my present subject, and go on to examine the logic of ideas in their
physical agency. Herein I find the key to the different series of
categories which the studies of memoirs Nos. 29, 30, 31, 32 developed.

The remaining three memoirs are of the nature of elucidations of
sound methodeutic by applying it in practice to the solution of
certain questions, which, although they do not belong to logic, are of
special interest in the discussion of logic.

From Draft D - MS L75.382-387

In this memoir, I pass beyond pure logic, to the consideration
of the outward influence of ideas. It is a remarkable fact that,
notwithstanding the miserable motives that seem to be the strongest in
almost all men, yet, upon the whole, Justice and Truth are the
greatest powers in the world. One may say, if one will, that they are
not powers at all: that the fact simply is that men are somewhat
disposed to tell the truth and to act justly when they can detect no
disadvantage in doing so, and that, since their injustice and lies
balance one another, this gives a slight but steady pressure toward
what is true and just, but that the only agencies are men. Now it is,
no doubt, true that Justice and Truth are not physical forces; and no
more are men's minds. In order that a physical effect should be
produced, a physical force is requisite. But that no more proves that
Justice and Truth are not causes, than it proves that human minds,
which act in precisely the same way, are not causes. One may say, if
one is determined to look upon the matter from one side alone, that
human energy and physical force give Justice and Truth the only
efficacy they have. But it is quite as true to say that Justice and
Truth animate their defenders and communicate power to them. This is
not only just as true, although it would not be a truth germane to a
physical investigation, but it has the advantage over the other
statement of being the pertinent truth when we are considering the
phenomena of the advance of Truth and Justice.

If I, sitting in my study, begin to feel warm, I may go through
a process of thought ending in a desire to have my window open. I say
to myself, if I want my window open, I must open it; and if I am to
open it, I must rise from the table; and thereupon my thought becomes
sunk in the depths of consciousness. The next thing I can clearly
discern is that I am across the room opening my window. Now the
fashionable theory is that my physical actions are entirely explicable
from beginning to end by mechanics, that my consciousness is merely an
inward aspect of certain physical phenomena, and that if this aspect
did not exist at all, as it happens to do, the laws of mechanics would
still make all my conduct from the cradle to the grave just what it
is. For my part, I think this flagrant nonsense. I do not admit that
it is an admissible hypothesis that consciousness and a chemical
action in the brain are two aspects of something, because that
involves the hypothesis that there is a something for them to be
aspects of, and that I cannot admit because it is an utterly
unverifiable hypothesis, a meaningless piece of metaphysics. An
aspect is an idea. It has no being other than its being represented.
It is a fundamental position of logic, without which there can be no
distinction of truth and falsity, certainly no falsity, that being and
being represented are entirely different. If there be no falsity, it
is not false to say that the mind is a substantial entity entirely
independent of matter. If there is any falsity, being and being
represented are different. Since, then, an aspect is merely a mode of
being represented, if a chemical change is a mere aspect, it is not a
real fact. In short, the whole physical universe must go by the board
(for a chemical change is as real as any physical fact), consequently
again no falsity. You may say, if you please, that the only
substance is matter, and that mind is a mere aspect. That will not
involve the same absurdity. That is pure materialism. But it is
difficult for me to imagine that all the strong minds who pretend to
believe in "psycho-physical parallelism" really fail to see that it is
utter nonsense.

Let us start then with the theory of pure materialism. The mind
is nothing but the complex of a brain's ideas, and these ideas are
mere aspects. That is an intelligible position. There is no way of
overthrowing it except by hard fact. I believe that such facts
abound. I propose to defend this proposition in this memoir. I say,
then, that if there were nothing but matter, there could not be a law
of nature. Well, there are no laws of nature, will be the answer, but
only uniformities. I join issue there. Next, I say, if there were
nothing but matter there could be no such thing as reasoning. There
are logical machines, I shall be told. Yes, machines constructed by
mind to fulfill a special process which they are made to fulfill by
the action of mind on matter. But not performing any of the processes
which logic criticizes, nor even any higher kind of mathematical
reasoning. Next I say, if there were no mind, other than a mere
aspect, a symbol could not determine a physical effect. My opponents
will say that habit explains it. To this I rejoin that it cannot
probably shown that habit would explain it, and even if it does, if
there were nothing but matter there could be no habit. Finally, I say
that if there were nothing but matter, there could be no such power as
we observe in abstract ideas [such as] Beauty, Truth, Right. I will
develop these arguments in the memoir, and I hope to make them
convincing. As for the common objection to materialism, that matter
could not feel, I grant that it is worthless.

If my arguments are sound, an idea is not a mere aspect. Then I
am bound to say what sort of being it has. This I postpone to the
next memoir. At present I wish to consider objective logic, by which
I mean the logical processes of ideas acting upon the external world.
I propose to give a sketch of this sort of logic, if it can be called
logic.

From Draft E - MS L75.183-184

Have ideas any power in the physical world? Absolute idealism
is contrary to fundamental principles of logic. Psycho-physical
parallelism is meaningless. The two tenable positions are materialism
and spiritualism, between which positive facts must decide. These
facts will be discussed. Small weight of psychical research. It
appears to be true that matter can act directly only upon matter, and
ideas directly only upon ideas. A tertium quid inadmissable. Still
it does not follow that matter cannot act on ideas and ideas on
matter. Recent physical research tends to favor the possibility.
Laws of nature are ideas. Proof that they really influence matter.
How? Von Hartmann's unconscious mind. The logical process of active
ideas.

Final Version - MS L75.395-396

MEMOIR 34

ON THE UNIFORMITY OF NATURE

The vagueness of the language with which men commonly talk of
the uniformity of nature at once masks the diversity of a number of
distinct questions which are wrapped up together in that phrase, and
at the same time masks the great diversity of opinions that are very
commonly held upon these questions. I have discussed these different
questions in half a dozen different papers; but there is none of them
[of which the] statement of my argumentation cannot be much amplified
and improved, and to which new historical matter cannot bring
considerable light. Moreover, I wish to bring all the different
questions to one focus, and consider them together. This, I am sure,
will cause thinkers to be more favorable to the views which I have at
different times defended. Among the questions is that of nominalism
and realism, in connection with which I shall show that all modern
philosophy, by an accident of history, has been blind to consider-
ations of the greatest evidence and moment.

Final Version - MS L75.396-397

MEMOIR 35

ON METAPHYSICS

The great distinction between Aristotelian philosophy and a
modern philosophy is that the former recognized a germinal mode of
being inferior to existence, which hardly [even] Schelling does;
certainly no other modern philosopher. This question is considered in
the light of the methodeutic developed in previous memoirs. The
result is applied to all the questions of high metaphysics.

From Draft D - MS L75.308

{From Draft D (308)}
In this memoir I defend essentially Aristotelian opinions which
give room for the real being and agency of ideas, distinguishing an
esse in futuro from an esse in praeterito and an esse in praesento,
and also a mode of action substantially Aristotle's final causation,
as well as physical action which is substantially his efficient
causation.

Final Version - MS L75.397

MEMOIR 36

ON THE REALITY AND NATURE OF TIME AND SPACE

This applies my methodeutic to the discussion of a question
which will have repeatedly emerged during the course of the memoirs.
I may say briefly that I defend the well-known opinion of Newton. But
other questions are considered. I do not think any theory
satisfactory which does not offer some explanation (a mathematically
exact and evident one) of why space should have three dimensions.

From Draft D - MS L75.308

I hold, with Newton, that time and space are real entities. I
discuss the question of whether they are so or not, and then consider
their real properties.